Reflective Essay Examples on My Process and Experience of Doing Research

My experience in writing research began way back while still in high school. At the high school level, my skills in writing research were still minimal and I relied a lot in the works of other writers, in compiling my own work. Though I did not necessarily copy and paste from other research works, I had a major problem in paraphrasing techniques, which made my writing skills substandard and almost reflecting the same ideas from the works, I borrowed my ideas from. However, my skills in writing research papers have substantially improved over the years, especially in my college level of education. This is particularly attributed to the many researches I have done in my literature classes, where I have written on such topics as, ‘My Response to the Novel Neverwhere,’ ‘The Visibility of the Invisible’ based on Neverwhere among other researches on other related books.

During the process of research writing, students are highly encouraged to embrace the writing of original work that does not mirror the works of other writers. Although many researches entail the borrowing of ideas from other writers’ works, some vital writing skills can be used to integrate research into someone’s paper to exhibit originality that is essential especially in academic writing. The techniques include summarizing, which entails writing briefly of the main ideas from the sources, to be used in the intended research writing. Another skill involves paraphrasing. This is the restructuring and the restatement of source passages using my own words in order to reinstate the intended meaning of the summarized ideas. The final skill entails quoting of the exact words from the source materials of the research. These techniques help to enhance and preserve the originality during the process of writing research.

The credibility of a researcher’s work is accessed on the originality of the researcher’s work. In the academic field, it is very important for a researcher to adhere to the rules and guidelines that establish the standards of research writing. It is against academic standards for researchers to copy and paste the work of other writers or rather use the ideas of other writers, without fully acknowledging the writers of such works. In a case where a writer fails to acknowledge the source writer of any material used, this may expose the researcher to the accusations of plagiarism, which may threaten the credibility of the researcher’s work, rendering it irrelevant. To avoid plagiarism, it is crucial for a researcher to acknowledge the author by citing the reference, as soon as the mentioning of the idea borrowed from such an author’s work.

Currently, am working on a research paper that involves a review of Gaiman’s Literary and Cultural Influences, which have been presented in the majority of his works. Gaiman is an author who has written many books especially based on the themes of fiction, comic and fantasy. Some of his books that I am researching on are particularly Neverwhere and Smoke and Mirrors besides other related books. There are several sources, which I have researched so far for the work. These include internet sources, books and scholarly articles, particularly from peer-reviewed journals. I have also engaged in finding out the list of sources used by my classmates and realized most of them are using more the same as what I am planning to use, which are online magazine articles, academic websites and other association web sites, besides suitable books and scholarly articles.

From my researches, I have acquired much information about literature and in particular, about fantasy. Fantasy is a literature genre, which is widely used by different authors in their works. This kind of literature style is used in the writing of different kinds of literature books targeting all levels of audience, both children and adults. Fantasy has been incorporated in literature books since ancient times of literature writing. Its roots are believed to have originated from ancient fairy tales, which were common in many traditional cultures of many societies. The use of fantasy in literature is highly embraced to bring the aspect of humor and fiction in stories, which are important elements used to make stories interesting and help in the expounding of the readers’ thoughts in understanding the stories. Majority of fantasy writers seem to derive their inspiration from the works of the older authors. This is because many of the modern days’ literature books show similarities in the use of such genres as fantasy. This show how relevant, the influences of other authors’ previous literary works are, to the growth of creativity of writers. This proves that writers are dependent of each other for the development of their creative works.

My current research writing has really exposed me to many ideas and expanded my creativity for the research writing process. Initially, I had some problems of articulating and integrating ideas from several different sources while writing research papers. From my experience with the current research paper am working on, the problems have really gotten better. The research has helped me in understanding my sources and in the classifying of the sources in terms of relevance to my research paper. I am now conversant with linking different ideas from multiple sources, in supporting my claims in arguments. This acquired skill has facilitated my easy researching, planning and writing of my paper, which I am almost through with it, with some derivation of some enjoyment. From my experience, I have learned that research writing is an art that requires patience and willingness to learn, in order to improve on the creativity level that forms the foundation of research writing.